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The Federal Aviation Association will add air traffic controllers to 27 towers after another air-traffic controller fell asleep on the job. This time it was at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport in Nevada.

After several attempts to contact the air-traffic controller, the pilot of an air ambulance, carrying a critically ill patient, was forced to land at the airport early Wednesday. Federal transportation officials said the controller could not be reached for 16 minutes.

In the last two months, there have been 4 other incidents where an airplane pilot was unable to reach a sleepy air-traffic controller at a U.S. airport, including Washington, DC’s Reagan National Airport and Seattle’s Boeing Field-King County International Airport.

The FAA has demanded that additional controllers staff overnight shifts where only one controller works. The National Transportation Safety Board and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee have announced investigations of these recent air traffic control incidents.

Disney Cruise Line has announced that starting in 2012 they will open new ports in New York, NY, Seattle, WA, and Galveston, TX. Disney already operates out of Port Canaveral, FL, and Los Angeles, CA. In 2011, Disney Cruise Line launched Disney Dream, and 4 new ships are scheduled to debut in 2012, includingDisney Fantasy, the sister ship to Disney Dream. With their expanding fleet, Disney had no choice but to make their ships more accessible by opening more ports. Along with the new ships and new ports come new itineraries to Alaska, Mexico, the Caribbean and Canada, all starting in 2012.

The devastation in Japan after the earthquake and subsequent tsunami is at the forefront of everyone’s mind, but if you need a lighthearted distraction here are the travel stories that had us scratching our heads.

An earthquake and resulting tsunami hit Japan on Friday causing at least hundreds of deaths and affecting travel plans around the globe. Reuters reports that most US airlines canceled most of their flights to and from Japan on Friday. American Airlines canceled all of its flights.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Japanese air carriers canceled hundreds of flights and that airlines throughout Asia and Europe diverted or suspended flights to Tokyo Friday.

In Japan, All Nippon Airways reports that it canceled some flights to Tokyo Narita Airport, and its midnight flights from Tokyo Haneda on March 12 have been canceled. Japan Airlines says it’s flights are experiencing “irregular operations and that Sendai Airport has been closed.

After an increase in Mexico’s drug violence, the Texas Department of Public Safety wants college students to rethink spring-break plans south of the border.

Public Safety Director Steven McCraw encourage students to stay on the US side of Falcon Lake, a popular fishing and boating spot on the Rio Grande border. According to MSNBC.com, it’s also the same area where David Hartley was shot and killed last September.

“Drug violence has not discriminated — innocent bystanders and people who may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time are among the casualties,” McCraw said in a written statement on Tuesday.

Officials are also warning students to travel with caution in popular destinations, including Cancun and Acapulco, where “various crime problems exist.”

Like the rest of us, our hosts were getting into the Valentine’s Day spirit this week. Of course if your love life is dead, you’d probably prefer to celebrate with the Ghost Adventures guys and their Ghostly Lovers special. And if all else fails, you can fawn over these adorable snow babies.

Our super ski-travel blogger, Julia Mancuso, has had some early success at the FIS world ski championships in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. On the first day of competition Tuesday, Julia finished second in the super-G, a speed event that includes tighter turns than a downhill race.

We prefer to think that Julia’s association with TravelChannel.com, which began in December, has brought her good luck. But she won three previous world championship medals before she started blogging for us. Julia also has won three Olympic medals, including gold in the giant slalom at the 2006 Turin Olympics and two silvers at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Julia is planning to compete in three of the four remaining events at worlds–the downhill, the super combined and the giant slalom. The championships end February 20.

Things may be changing at New York’s JFK airport soon. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are looking for developers to build a boutique hotel. The proposed150-room hotel would be built between the old TWA terminal and the new JetBlue building, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The now-vacant TWA terminal was designed by Eero Saarinen, who also designed the St. Louis Gateway Arch. The plan is to use the Saarinen-designed space as the hotel’s lobby and entrance, which would also be home to restaurants and shops.

Construction for the new hotel could wrap up 2 years after a developer is signed, but there is an obstacle. The TWA terminal is a New York City landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Bob Cook’s streak of attending every Super Bowl game ended Sunday after he fell ill last Thursday and ended up in the hospital, where he remains in serious condition.

But the streak for his family remains in force, thanks to some creative crisis travel management by his wife, Sarah, and daughter Kylie.

Cook had received a lot of press in the weeks before Super Bowl XVL as one of 4 men who had attended every Super Bowl game. We posted a story about it last week. The others, Don Crisman, Tom Henschel and Larry Jacobson, made it to Dallas on Sunday to watch the Packers beat the Steelers and extend their Super Bowl streak to 45. READ MORE

Football fans whose flights had been canceled scrambled Saturday to get to Dallas for Super Bowl XLV, while those already in town were dealing with frigid temperatures and over 5 inches of snow — twice Dallas’ annual average.

A fresh blast of snow and ice canceled hundreds of flights Friday, snarled highways and caused dangerous sheets of ice to cascade from the domed roof of Cowboys Stadium. The falling ice injured 6 workers hired by the NFL to prepare the stadium, though none of the injuries were considered life-threatening.

The problems in the Dallas-Forth Worth area capped off one of the worst weeks of winter weather in US history. To see how this week’s storm compared to some of the nastiest ever recorded, check out our Worst US Blizzards photo slideshow. And if you’d like to reminisce about a time when NFL championships were actually played outside in the “frozen tundra,” don’t miss our Life of Lombardi feature.